Another Stania in Korea

I like my name. In Indonesia, common names for girl are Kania, Vania, Tania, Rania, or just Nia. But not Stania. Well of course, there is Nira Stania, a presenter for Insert, a gossip show on TV and spoke person for local soy sauce product. I also spotted Stania on Sezsy's friendlist, her schoolmate in SMA 3 Bandung. But then again, ‘Stania’ is still not an ordinary name here. As part of narcism activity to my name , I often google it (hey, it is a common narcism –Citra also does that :p).
Couple of days ago, I found new entry with my full name on the net.
Waaw…. Am I being popular or what? (Mind you, I am a true narcist).   
I look at the entry again. Hey, I knew the site address. It is Studio Azure Tree. Weeks before, I received wrong e-mails which were meant to be sent to Stania Hwang. He happened to have a similar e-mail address with me on gmail (I still wonder whether ‘stania’ is a common name for male in Korea. I think his real name is Won-kune Hwang). Then, I click on the entry site address. But ooooww… it’s all written in Korean (except my e-mail which he pasted from the real format). I attach his writing below (if you see square boxes or question marks below, it means that your computer doesn’t support CJK/Chinese-Japanese-Korean script):

친구할까요? 

제 gmail 계정은 s_t_a_n_i_a_._h_w_a_n_g_at_gmail.com 입니다.
그런데 가끔 편의상, 제 자신에게 메일을 보낼 일이 생기는데요,
그 중에서도 가끔, 받는 사람에 이렇게 주소를 적게 됩니다.
_s_t_a_n_i_a_at_gmail.com

OTL

이런 일이 두어번 있었습니다.
오늘 아침에도 왕 삽질을 했죠 orz.
지난 번에, 잘못 보냈다는 사실을 모르고 있다가, 저 메일의 주인장께서 직접
'잘못 보내셨습니다 ;)' 라고 친절하게 알려주셔서 감동했는데 (별거 아니지만 여튼; )
오늘 아침에 본의아니게 또 다시 메일을 보내게 되었습니다.
실수를 당장 알아채고 '메일을 잘못 보내서 죄송합니다.' 라고 짧게 메일을 보냈죠.
(주저리주저리 핑계를 달고 싶었지만 영어가 딸리니 짧게)

그런데, 친절한 그 분께서 답 메일을 보내주셨습니다. :)

어찌 잘 하면 친구가 될지도 모르겠네요 ;)
Indonenglish 이라고 표현했지만, 이리저리 영어공부도 될지 모르고 ;)

살짝 기대를 ~_~ 해봅니다.

Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 09:31:05+0700
From: Stania Puspawardhani
To: Hwang Won-kune
Subject: Re: Sorry. I mistook again TT

Hi Hwang Won-kune.
That's OK. Seems that we share the same name :)

Actually, I log on to your site, the Studio Azure Tree (http://stania.pe.kr)
Let me guess, you are a softwarre engineer who love music and
photography -am I right? :p

I also have a blog, it is on: http://stania.blogs.friendster.com (but
mostly it is written in Indonesian, and some part of Indonenglish :p)

I work as a radio journalist. You can take a look at my radio site (we
have several reports from South and North Korea too. This week, our
Chinesse stringers went to Pyongyang to watch Arirang Mass Games):
http://www.radio68h.com/asiacalling

Have a nice day.
-stania-

Now I’m worried.
I am afraid that I didn’t act appropriately regarding to Korean culture. In Indonesia, if you introduce yourself to new people, you might get two kinds of response: you will be recognized as a friendly person (which is positive), or as a person that pretends to be friendly (which is negative). The later has its own Indonesian term, which is “SOK KENAL SOK DEKAT” alias SKSD (I think Indonesian paranoids created this term in the first place). Luckily, I have a Korean friend who kindly translates the writing above.  This is what she writes:

From: Hyun-Sung Khan
To: Stania Puspawardhani
Subject: RE: Another Stania in Korea

Hi Stania
Let me put your mind at ease, the blog written by your namesake is perfectly
sweet.

He explains first of all how you and he have similar email addresses and
then he explains how a couple of times he sent emails to you pointing out
emails mistakenly sent to him.  And then he writes that you kindly
responded.

After he explains all this, he ends by saying "Who knows? we might even end
up becoming friends."
He notes that you seem to be "indoenglish" and jokes that this might give
him a chance to work on his english! (He puts a smiley expression after
this).

Also I think you have got it exactly right when you say he is probably "a
software engineer who loves music and photography" because after his blog,
additional bloggers (probably his friends) write in response to your
comment:  "wow cool!" (that's the nearest translation I can get!) and
another blogger writes "she's got your exactly nailed".  Then the blogs get
a bit childish and the last one calls him a "big shot"!!.

Well I hope that is a detailed enough explanation!  Don't worry, you haven't
committed any kind of error.  This man is just describing what has happened
in a perfectly nice way.

Best,
Hyun-Sung

What a relief :) The blog is written in a positive note.
Now, excuse me, I want to continue my narcism activity again :p

Comments

[Roul]

hurm.... neway.. how did you found my blog? quite interesting.... why associated me with Ong Ju lin? did u knew her?..... err.... nice knowing you!